Bruce Babbitt
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Bruce Edward Babbitt (born June 27, 1938), a Democrat, served as United States Secretary of the Interior and as Governor of Arizona.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Babbitt graduated from the University of Notre Dame, and attended the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England on a Marshall Scholarship, and then received his law degree at Harvard Law School.
Babbitt was elected Attorney General of Arizona. When Governor Wesley Bolin died in office, Babbitt succeeded to the governorship.
Normally the Arizona Secretary of State would have been next in line to become governor, but Bolin had held that office before succeeding his predecessor, who resigned to accept an ambassadorship.
He married Harriet Coons (known as Hattie) in 1968.
In 1979, Babbitt was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to serve as a Commissioner on the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, a six month investigation of the March, 1979 accident at a commercial nuclear power plant at Middletown, Pennsylvania.
Babbitt proved popular as governor and election to two full terms for the office. Babbitt served as governor of Arizona from 1978 to 1987.
A founding member of the Democratic Leadership Council and the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in 1985, Babbitt sought the Democratic Party's 1988 nomination for President of the United States. Among his proposals was a national sales tax to remedy the then-record budget deficits piled up during the administration of Ronald Reagan. He enjoyed positive press attention (called a "boomlet" in USA Today), but after finishing out of the top tier of candidates in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, he dropped out of the race. In an intentional reference to Richard Nixon (who said after losing the California governorship that the press "won't have [me] to kick around anymore"), Babbitt joked in his last campaign press conference that the media "won't have Bruce Babbitt to puff up anymore."
After leading the League of Conservation Voters, Babbitt served for eight years, 1993-2001, as the United States Secretary of the Interior during Bill Clinton's administration.
In 1993, Babbitt was very seriously considered by President Clinton to replace retiring United States Supreme Court Justice Byron White. Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg instead. Clinton again considered Babbitt for the high court in 1994 when Harry Blackmun announced his retirement. Babbitt was passed over again, this time in favor of Stephen Breyer.
Babbitt's brother, Paul Babbitt, was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives in 2004.
After leaving the Department of Interior, Babbitt took a job as chief counsel of the environmental litigation department of Latham and Watkins, a large Washington law firm.
Babbitt has just written a book entitled Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America, where he proposes, among other things, to amend the Endangered Species Act so that it is used to identify, conserve and protect landscapes, watersheds and ecosystems whether or not an endangered species happens to be there. Making a parallel with preventive medicine, he thinks it should promote the protection of open space and ecosystems before the downward spiral to extinction begins.
Babbit has attracted the ire of some environmentalists and Native American groups for, among other things, his representation of Arizona Snowbowl ski resort and its effort to expand the resort and use wastewater to make artificial snow.
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| Preceded by: Wesley Bolin | Governor of Arizona 1978 – 1987 | Succeeded by: Evan Mecham |
| Preceded by: Manuel Lujan, Jr. | United States Secretary of the Interior 1993 – 2001 | Succeeded by: Gale Norton |
| United States Secretaries of the Interior
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| Ewing • McKennan • Stuart • McClelland • Thompson • C Smith • Usher • Harlan • Browning • Cox • Delano • Chandler • Schurz • Kirkwood • Teller • Lamar • Vilas • Noble • M Smith • Francis • Bliss • Hitchcock • Garfield • Ballinger • Fisher • Lane • Payne • Fall • Work • West • Wilbur • Ickes • Krug • Chapman • McKay • Seaton • Udall • Hickel • Morton • Hathaway • Kleppe • Andrus • Watt • Clark • Hodel • Lujan • Babbitt • Norton • Kempthorne |
| Governors of Arizona
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| Hunt • Campbell • Hunt • Campbell • Hunt • Phillips • Hunt • Moeur • Stanford • Jones • Osborn • Garvey • Pyle • McFarland • Fannin • Goddard • Williams • Castro • Bolin • Babbitt • Mecham • Mofford • Symington • Hull • Napolitano |
